And Then There Were Two

For some time now polling data has shown that Mitt Romney was the only Republican candidate that was competitive with President Obama in national polls. And one would think that the sustained attacks against him from Democrats as well as his fellow Republicans would have done serious damage to the Romney campaign by now. But a new national poll from CBS News shows that Romney has actually increased his lead and now has a slight advantage over Obama. And with all the talk of Santorum surging in the Iowa caucus one might think he would be more competitive against Obama in the polls as well, but he still lags behind the president in national polling.

Somewhat surprisingly, it is Ron Paul who is on the rise and he is now basically tied with Obama in national polling. It’s interesting that the two candidates the right-wing Christian conservatives hate the most are now leading in the fight for the nomination for the Republican Party. This leads one to wonder what type of sea-change a Mitt Romney/Ron Paul ticket could have on the Republican mindset. By combining their Libertarian and fiscal conservative constituencies, they could finally break the strangle hold Christian Conservatives have held over the party for decades.

And though President Obama seems to have done his level best to demoralize his base with a long line of backtracks, broken promises, and cave-ins to the Republicans throughout his short tenure as president, there are still two very powerful factors that favor Obama’s re-election. The first being money. Face it, elections are a rich man’s game, and Obama has more campaign cash than any other candidate. The second factor is incumbency. Recent political history in the US makes clear that Americans, for the most part, prefer the devil they know over the devil they don’t. Remember, even after all the wars, power-grabs, and political scandals, George W Bush was re-elected. Fasten your seat belts it’s going to be a bumpy election season.